Ayn's Multiple World

Good Student Day - Poor sit on Honches Day

Good morning. No matter what anyone tells you this is the one that wakes up at 2 in the morning and eats donuts! AHA! Busted!

Just had to clear up that little matter!

For the record we still had half a pack of smokes left, but that was considered dangerously low, the big deal was that we used the last of the emergency wet kitty food yesterday. You know that is going to be a problem for the household pets. A house with unhappy kitties is an unhappy house!

Have to slow down our minds now … having a little problem concentrating. Our friend did come over last night … that is the top memory. We got to go out to our Mexican restaurant, but it was spoiled in the sense that we had ordered the strawberry Margarita’s and there was after settling a little brown around the drink, not much, but we called the waitress who wanted to insist that it was ok, but it wasn’t, so she brought us a new drink and it was the same … looked ok at first, but then turned color. I’m not sure what it was, but we were pretty sure it wasn’t something we wanted to drink which frustrated the waitress, because she said she had mixed something herself in the morning and it was ok. But, it wasn’t because I’ve never had a drink do that before … and although I don’t drink very often, I have had 28 years experience enough to say SOMETHING was wrong. Sheesh.

Other than that the night was nice. I felt bad for our friend because he is down and doesn’t want to admit it and thrown on top of that was that he was very tired. I knew because of the problems he was having this week and because he spent some of that time sick, he was going to need extra babying. There was no clock, but we didn’t get much resistance when we told him we’d give him a two hour body rub. He is such a spoiled baby. He drifted in and out of sleep, we listened to those little satisfaction noises he makes automatically and the sound of his breathing and we studied his soft angel cherub face and his other contour lines, until the very end when we ourselves succumbed to drifting to a very secure-feelinged nap, but he’s got a special alarm built in so that the moment I stop the movement of my hand, he wakes up and says, “Uh-huh, I caught you!” Shoot, I hate that when it happens!

I’m afraid, we didn’t do so good when it was time for him to leave. One of our regressed parts started to pout and insisted that he didn’t touch us back. He said, “remember when I asked you to come here and you laid down with my arm wrapped around you?” But, she complained the arm was more straight then wrapped so in fact she needed more touching back time. Fortunately, our friend is very patient and she got held for a little longer. She confessed that she just didn’t want to see him go. I think he understands. Women… What can you do with them?!



Hmm, there was a break here. We were so cold we got tired and slept for almost a couple of hours, now we’re up again, but are still cold. Should have left the door open OR eaten the donuts, because that always messes our ability to regulate our heat. Maybe a little headache too. Shoot, shoot.

Ok, we’re back again … had to go back to bed. We’ve done a few things now since being up and the time is about 10 am. One of the DSPs from work thought to write a nice note and it was nice to see hear from her. I see V.’s on line now again, and I know our friend was here too. At least on line. We also just took our medicine a little while ago, so that might mess us up a little … pretty late start in the day for all that. Hmm, just stepped out on the balcony. It seems to be a very nice day out there. Mostly blue skies. A little bit cooler than not, but that’s ok too.

A little vagueness of thought here.

Seems like we’ve been way out here in the social world and need to pull back a little. I’m afraid going to work is going to be quite a shock to our system. We’re wondering now if we shouldn’t plan to return on Tuesday instead. Monday’s are pretty helter skelter and it would give us a chance to talk to Dr. M. first.

I don’t know … feeling down again at the thought of having to go back. It’s not something I want to do … Pretty sure my sick days will work out, but then comes the fact that they are being all used up. I don’t know. It still hurts to think of all that, so I guess we’re going to put back on the other burner.

Ok, ok … need to think here of something … we’re pretty lost. Most likely I should do something for school. I wonder where we are with that. I don’t remember much school stuff from yesterday. Just the lawyer guy … we had written back and forth to him a couple of times. He was nice, snuck out of the spot light though in saying that he had meant something different than what the sentence had stated. That’s ok, we’ll let than one go to faulty communication on his part. I did not respond back the last time, because he had again made two more statements that both could be read two ways. I don’t want to assume either one is correct or incorrect. Mostly what he does is introduce two subjects in the sentence, then in the next he refers back to the prior without explaining more carefully which one he is referring to. I find that kind of structure difficult.

Yesterday, we commented on V’s last entry on his continuing story of his friend. It was a very long comment, because his writing had been worthy of that. I don’t know if I stepped past blogger’s etiquette in writing so long, or in opposition to some of the main thoughts he was making. We’ve also gone back and forth with it a few times with V. I think the biggest problem for me is that some of the writing he is doing is disagreeable (intellectually) with me because we are not on the same page of understanding previous assumptions. I cannot agree to something I don’t understand even though we know V. is pretty darn smart as is the person that he is referring to in Becker. The only way I know how to write and think is to match up previous thoughts and play them out looking for consistency and “truth” as I have learned it so far. I think that V. should write a book on his deeper thoughts and spell out all his arguments and proofs! Wouldn’t that be a good idea?? He’d have to let go a little TV/napping though. Hehehe

I think we have a hard time with the arguments too in that … I know that the crowd we are hanging with in the Blogger world, even if we feel at times a bit detached from it, consist of talented writers and artists. But, we have a hard time coming to the belief that as a group we stand out in any special way from the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. I use my hands and mind to do one thing, they another, but I don’t believe my place in life, love, or the pursuit of happiness is any better or worse then them. I do feel special, in that I feel accepted as a writer in this group and the feeling of acceptance is most likely one of my favorites. I feel honored in being amongst people that write and think about life. Just doesn’t get much better than this … because I like so much my writing aspects, with the exception, I’m also looking to be considered part of the community through school who think about writing of psychology. That part pleases me a great deal more than per say writing about literature. I have nothing against the other, but my personal preference is pointed toward understanding the mind and the human being in general. I think that’s why I write so much with V’s work. I know he thinks very deeply and that thrills me to no end. I’m not so happy all the time that there are so many conversations about dying. But, at this time, I think we are over-sensitized to the subject, one because we don’t understand our own suicidal ideations and struggles with life, and two, we’re afraid that V. is having a harder life, because he sticks so closely it’s end. We fear one day we will lose him to death and that gives us a great feeling of sadness. We think to be a good friend, we need to pay attention and was very excited when he wrote something about writing as something he would continue to do, I believe in celebration of life.

Hmm, looks like I am having trouble staying connected to the Internet and somehow the day is getting by without me. It’s already now a quarter to noon and I haven’t progressed my school thoughts. Better get over there pretty quick. I think we’re going to start with those nasty labs and get them out of the way … there is now like four of them due … shoot, shoot … still afraid I’m going to have problems with that because it had not worked for me in the past. Better try it out. Going to have trouble too because we had to go back to the wrist braces and I think the labs are going to required timed testing. Shoot, shoot. Oh Lordy 111 new messages over there. Shoot, shoot … looks like the third unit didn’t ever go through!



I don’t have to worry about project option C, because we are doing project option A, but we do need to do lab experiment 4 and 5 … This is what they got in mind … I HATE labs … shoot, shoot.

OHHHHHHK … breathe! Let’s first try the Brown one … here goes.

BEGIN LABS (FOUR!) Jeese!

U04a1 Lab experiment

Use your CogLab CD to participate in the Brown-Peterson Experiment under the Short-Term Memory area and the Von Restorff Effect Experiment under the Memory Processes area. Then answer the following questions:

1. The way that the contents of short-term memory are assessed seems rather restricted in this Brown-Peterson experiment. Suggest two ways to modify this assessment so that performance might improve.

2. As you look at the graph depicting your results, you see that the proportion correct for the letter-recall is at its highest when there are seven digits and one letter. According to this lab, should your results be like this? Why or why not?

Resource

Francis, G., Neath, I. , MacKewn, A., & Goldthwaite, D. (2004). Coglab on CD. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, pp. 37–38, 62–63.

I had trouble with the Brown-Peterson experiment. As shown below, I attempted the test three times. On each test, invariably the random number selector would send me two odd numbers, without a means of adjusting the test, but to cancel it and try over again. I thought three times was a sufficient number of tests to understand the basics of the lab. I accomplished on the first round 10 trials completed, on the second round, 18 trials completed, and on the third round, 20 trials completed. The first suggestion I would make to modify the experiment is to have gotten a better random-number generator. It was very frustrating to think I had gone through that much effort and had to repeat with no assurance that the situation wasn’t going to get better. The second suggestion I would make would be to have a more complicated interference. I found myself rehearsing the trigram while I was pushing the even buttons, the example given in the text of counting numbers backward, would have been more exacting. I believe I had a near perfect performance, but of course, I will not know for sure. With a more complicated interference, I am assured that my performance level would have gone down, but it would have better proven the concept the test was designed to measure in that longer duration of interference would affect a positive test performance.



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Although the statement we are to respond to with the Von Restorff test stated that the letter-recall proportion correct should be highest when there are 7 digits and one letter, my results showed that my results for digits was best at 8 digits and my results for letters was equally best at 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 where I was able to maintain 75%. My average for digits was .4858 and my average for letters was .6188. At 7 digits our proportion correct for digits was .6786, which was still above my average (difference of .1928%) for digits. At one digit – seven letters, I had achieved my highest percent, which remained relatively stable from 0 – 6 digits. There was a very sharp decline in the proportion of letters correct at 7 and 8 digits to the degree none were scored correctly at 8 digits. With the digits I had a high spike at 3 digits, then at the final 5, 6, 7, and 8, digits relatively we climbed an average of 71%, which was a difference of 23% higher than our average. When the number of digits was 8, we did our absolute best (.84375) in digits, and our absolute worst in letters (0).

In general, we were able to score less than 50% on our proportion of correct digits, and less than 2/3rds on our proportion of correct letters. I was still relatively happy to know we had done even this many correct. The test was very frustrating because I had to guess on so many numbers and letters. To be fair, my memory was tested four months ago at a university psychiatry lab and the results showed among other things, that my ability to recall is impaired at a moderate level.

Since our letter-recall after 6 digits had taken a significant nose dive with 7 digits, we scored 50% correct, and 8 digits we scored 0% correct, which were both lower than our overall average of 62%, which means our results show they should not look like this. The test should have shown the distinctive letter with 7 numbers/1 letter would have improved our odds at getting a higher percent correct because the letter would have stood out, but in fact we had consistently scored an average of 72% between 8 letters/0 numbers through only 2 letters/6 numbers. This meant we scored consistent at 72% during the first 6 digits and instead of spiking positive at 7 digits, we did not. I believe the reason for this was because when we were trying to remember the digits and letters, we found ourselves trying to hold in a group the predominant category of items. So, instead of looking for the unique digit or number, we looked for the easiest group to categorize with obviously letters being easier for us to group. I also think that because there was a fair amount of guessing that odds at getting a correct hit were pretty good, because there were not a significant number of choices, which made multiple guessing more advantageous, when we didn’t recall the items.



U05a1 Lab experiment

Use your CogLab CD to participate in the Mental Rotation experiment and the Prototype experiment under the Concepts area. Then answer the following questions:

1. On the Mental Rotation demonstration, some of you may not have obtained straight lines for the graph of the results, or you may not have found that reaction times increase as the angle of rotation increases. Give some reasons why this might have happened.

2. Look at your data for the Prototypes experiment and decide if they are what Posner and Keele would have predicted. There is one measure not included in the demonstration that Posner and Keele made. What is it, and how big should it be in relationship to the measures you did make?

Resource

Francis, G., Neath, I. , MacKewn, A., & Goldthwaite, D. (2004). Coglab on CD. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, pp. 81–84.

On the mental rotation demonstration, we found we averaged 2797.6 milliseconds if there was a 0 rotation angle. For 45 degree rotation angle we scored closely with the mirror image (2814.0), but we scored more slowly with the same image. At the 90 degree rotation angle we scored equally as poor averaging 4525.05. The actual results were between 4576.5 and 4473.6 milliseconds and we were slightly better with the same images. We continued to increase our time per rotation angle with the same image ending the test at 4717.3 milliseconds. We increased our speed to 4050.1 milliseconds with the mirror image at 135 degrees rotation angle. While the same images showed a steady expectable decline in speed per degrees rotation angle, the mirror images showed approximately the same quicker speed at an average of 2746.05 with the actual results between 2678.1 and 2814.0 for 0 and 45 degree rotation angle. The mirror image was the slowest on 90 degree angle (4576.5), where the 135 degree angle improved approximately 10% from the 90 degree angle.

With the same image, we were approximately 1 second slower at 45 degrees, about 2/3 a second slower at 90 degrees, and about a 10th of a second slower on 135 degrees. With the mirror image, we were approximately a 10th of a second slower at 45 degrees, about 1 2/3 seconds slower on 90 degrees, and almost a half a second faster with the 135 degree angle. According to Sheppard’s prediction, I did not decrease in speed as slow as 1 second per 50 degree rotation angle, and in the case of the mirror image, I actually picked up my speed by about half a second for the last rotation angle. The same image still shows a fairly constant velocity, though there is more discrepancy with the mirror image.

The test results may have been skewed, because while some images were easy to assess, I had difficulty maintaining mental images of the shapes in my head, so in addition to revolving, I was more often trying to assess the right image rotated according to the base on the left image, and then assessing whether one of the spiked corners went left or right of the base image spiked corners, though perhaps this was the same for everyone. I knew if the spike went the opposite direction that it would be a mirrored image. Before I figured out this method, I was being very frustrated because I wasn’t able to do the mental gymnastics. Basically, the “cheating” part was, I wasn’t holding the entire image, just enough to gauge the bottom of both and whether one peak would lie to the left or right of the angle. I also think there could have been a better set up of the test in that I used “z” and “/” for my keys, but it too time for me to get back and forth from the space bar because I was using my index fingers on those keys instead of my pinky finger as would occur if I was typing normally. If I were to do the test differently I might have kept my hand in they regular typing position and utilized my “f” and “j” keys for my index fingers.





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Posner and Keele would have predicted that the reaction time in milliseconds would be faster for the prototypes than for the variants, but not by much. This proved to be true. The variants were a 1/10 a second slower than the prototypes. I was very slow to catching on to what the prototype was. I had something close to it, but the concept I was holding in my head was too broad, I was looking for a variety of dots in the pattern where all I had to be concerned with was the pattern of two dots. I was close to figuring out what the prototype was during the 6th, 7th, and 8th trial out of the 15, but I missed it on the 10th trial. The necessary dots were within the broader scope. There was one more variant, where I was close again, but it was enough for me to figure out the pattern for the last 5 trials, and then it was a matter of pressing the keys fast enough. Because there were more prototypes than variants the last five trials, I think that helped to get that score lowered. I believe the extra measure was that there were a left and a right prototype. This should have made the prototypes easier to catch, though again we were slow. As soon as we saw the first prototype, we saw the second prototype, so in a sense since we knew the right keys for both, the times should have leveled off. However, looking at the last 5 scores where we knew it for certain the three prototypes averaged 494.3 milliseconds and the two variants averaged 671.5 milliseconds. This 27% increase in speed for variants over prototypes should have lessened or have evened out the reaction time had the test carried on longer. If there was any other advantage for the prototype over the variant, it would have been because I am right handed.



Data summary
Data summary for experiment Prototypes Sat May 06 21:48:22 GMT 2006
Average reaction times for previously unseen prototypes and previously unseen variations of the prototypes. The expected effect is that the RT for the prototypes is smaller.

Pattern type Reaction time (ms)
Prototypes 1007.625
Variants 1097.625



END LABS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! Wait til V hears the four labs are done! It’s about 5:30 pm now. I feel really good about finishing that work, especially in having figured out that last experiement. They give you 45 trials to figure it out, then the last 15 trials they test you to see if you’ve got it. There was an added element of two prototypes, which was obviously the answer to their sneaky question. I am imagining that a lot of people are going to have trouble figuring that out. Theoretically this lab is due today, but when I checked the room out, no one had left comments, which is very unusual. You are not supposed to give away the answer, because on this one you send the lab results directly to the Professor using an alternative route. But, PSHWOOO pressures off!

I still would like to finish the two journal entries for these last two units. The difficulty rating is not as high as writing a paper or doing labs as far as I’m concerned. BUT, because I’m doing double work in one night, it’s going to take the rest of my evening. I see already between the two there are 82 comments to read between here and the end of this task. Shoot. Lotsa to do. Hmm, maybe I better take my medicine too. I know its around dinner time, but I think I’ll wait a little bit yet. Not much left to eat. I think I’m going to make a little tuna/tomato salad with dressing. Sigh … someone’s got to do it!

I’ll be close by - right over here in the classroom. Thanks, for sticking around this far through.

Journal Entry Assignment Start

Journal Entry - Write a short (two to three paragraphs) reflection on this unit. What is the one most important thing you have learned about memory? How has it impacted your educational, professional, and personal knowledge and practice? What areas within this unit did you find most interesting to pursue in future study?

While working with the three stores model, memory was very important as well as comparing it to the other memory models. This felt like more ground work that had to be done to get me a very important part and that seems to be - how emotional stimuli affect working and long-term memory. Although my final project is going to be the effect of self-regulation and problem solving on learning performance, I have a very strong vested interest in emotions and memory. I was able to process enough information this particular round to leave me feeling good about what I’m just beginning to know about. The work on self-regulation affects the work I hope to some day be doing toward the advancement of program development for adults with developmental disabilities. But, the work on emotions and memory affect me as an individual who has dissociative identity disorder. From what I’ve picked up so far, emotion does affect memory and selective attention and I have a general sense that the things that are important to individuals throughout their life, continue in one realm or another, until the emotions stored in memory have worked themselves out. We saw some connections between life meaning and personal relevance that made the work that much more inviting. I believe also that abuse affects neurotransmitters and cortisol, which affects self-regulation. I think that this mixed with a lack of proper attachment in infancy and early childhood obligates many survivors with the sense of an entire host of problems not only as child abuse survivors, but as also as adults. We need to continually address these issues and others of similarity in trying to establish just a routine life, primarily because they were ground in so early in life.

I tried to be patient with the reading, particularly that of Loftus. I’ve read her work in the past and don’t mind acknowledging that she has been a very negative force to people who have survived abuse. I think my anger with her in particular is because she has targeted abuse survivors as being not credible. I came into knowledge of my multiplicity in 1990, sixteen years ago. I’ve been a multiple in therapy ever since through a highly esteemed university. While I can agree that memory can be misleading, for example, I would never go after legally the person I believe is responsible. The only real proof I have that something went wrong at all is in looking at behaviors that show themselves over time. One thing resounds; the multiplicity is not going away. Not all psychologists or psychiatrists agree multiples exist, but I know. Most of the work I’ve done in therapy does not come from memories of the actual abuses. Most of the work comes in working in the present tense trying to understand how “our system” communicates and works together … usually, works together. There are additional problems in that some of our parts are affected by anxiety, depression, obsession, and poor memory - things common in abuse. While, I don’t think any of these factors are assistive in making regular day to day life easy or smooth, I don’t believe that any of these things has to impair my ability to make something out of my life.

Concerning the impact of memory on education, professionalism, and practice, I hope to better learn from the viewpoint of psychology on how memory works with perception, knowledge, consciousness, etc to give me a good working understanding of how the brain functions as one unit. I do this work for both myself and future clients. If I have some understanding of this, I should be able to design learning programs that adapt to the individual being served. I have like most Capella learners written up a plan that includes looking at future courses, we will be taking. I look forward to the series of courses we’ve drawn up in taking us down an educational path where one adds to another, and another, until the gradual process overcomes my senses and we’re able to realize that we know quite a bit and are able to use that knowledge ably. I also hope through the courses and other learners to better understand the art of learning so that I can one day contribute to the body of written information. It’s all actually quite exciting.

Journal entry assignment end

Well, part of the battle is won. As you can see we’ve written at least one journal entry. What I realized is that I’m going to really need concentrate on some reading the balance of the night. I decided that I’m going to need surviving not knowing how all my peers are doing. We took long enough to comment officially to two of them. I chose two women that had already written journals that had not been responded to by others. I always think this is the fairest way to go about this. I usually choose the first two people I run into. It was really neat the way it turned out. One lady talked about her failing memory, which we could relate to and the other woman, turns out to be someone from Puerto Rico and she’d commented on her country shutting down. I don’t follow the news to well, but I was happy to have found this entry in that it deserved a comment, if nothing else. I really wish I could read through more, but I know time is of the essence. I need to read something so I have something to comment on with the next section. I hope the coffee serves me well, because I know tomorrow I am going to need focusing on the other two assignments due this week, theoretically, by tonight.

While there is a little light left, I’m headed to the bistro. 

D)(*#_(*% Had second thoughts. I looked ahead at the next assignment … we remembered that the journal part isn’t actually due until tomorrow and since we are officially caught up with the old week, we could journal later not on the reading, which I am going to agnonize over until it’s complete because although no direct papers are going to be written from it, it discusses knowledge and knowledge systems, which is going to be critical to my learning processes. It had also given me an opportunity to appreciate being outside. Maybe I’ll do that anyway and just relax for a few minutes. The assignment that is more important is to get on with the one that states we have to evaluate our first weeks of discussion posts against the grading rubric. We are supposed to list our strengths and weaknesses.

Ohhh … that was so wonderful. I forgot to note the time, but it is now about 8:30 and we were out there for about 3 smokes worth … Hmm, haven’t showed you for a while how haggard we are looking. Too many times, we had to shut down everything to get through the entrance test and labs at school. Let’s take a look … Hmm?



Mmm, I guess that could have been scarier than I thought. We’re hiding the part where our hair looks terrible, because someone forgot to take a shower today. Shoot, hate when that happens. But, as sad as that condition may be, it has an advantage only in that nobody is here exactly to know how yucky that may be. Ok, crawling under a rock, but a rock with the sign STUDENT painted on it! Hmm, just wondering … Jodi has come to mind today, because earlier she had written a thoughtful note. Now, I’m wondering because I know she is reading this how close in her life she would be in going back to school. Hmm … remember to check that out. Because, we’re thinking she has a pretty school like mind … HMMM?? Ok, ok … leave Jodi be. But, check it out anyway hehehe.

So skipping on to this next part … it seems there are only 28 messages posted in the courseroom. Why don’t we go through those with an end goal tonight of having a pretty good idea where we are starting in the morning. We’re still messing with our coffee experience and we’re thinking we’d like to stay up for another hour and a half … That would give us a 10 pm bedtime. WOOOOHOOOO!!!! We’re doing this! ACK!! But, we’re going to be pretty sorry if we don’t put back those wrist braces. Here me in there?? Shoot, can’t even remember what it was called wrong with our hands or wrists, but recall its something that goes all the way wrong up to our elbows. Eh, can’t be too important, just know that sometimes the brace makes our fingers and wrists not ache and tingle and if this is the only cost in being able to spend an inordinate amount of time on the computer, so be it!

Evaluation of Discussion Posts :
Please evaluate your first weeks of discussion posts against the rubric. Give me both strengths and weaknesses. You can do this as an email to me in the classroom so that this is private. Your grade for the first set of dicussions will be posted after you do this.

Hmm… 10:15 read everything, responded to a few more comments. Maybe we’ll just peek and try to reassure us, we can do this … hold please… Where’d I put that rubric, whatever the h_(*&#%Q_ that means. D(*%&_(* rubric is really just a grid and the )&%_@#&#_$ thing is 8 pages long. ARGH!!!!! This gets saved for tomorrow!

posted by Ann Marie @ 5/06/2006 10:36:00 PM Comments: 3